December 2005 newsletter

Hot chocolate with no sugar

With a cold snap throughout much of the U.S. this month, hot chocolate is a great temptation. Here is how to make it without the sugar (and the glucose and insulin whipsawing) while keeping it as close to whole foods as we can get while still have it taste recognizably hot, liquid and chocolaty!

You will need:

A local health food store should have powdered licorice root or you should be able to find it online. Only he powdered licorice root is fine enough and makes a thick enough liquid to work nicely.

For one cup of hot chocolate, heat drinking water to boil. Pour water into coffee mug over licorice root powder and chocolate. If you use solid chocolate, you will have to stir a bit to break it up and disperse it, and even then it won't completely dissolve, but will work well enough. Powdered unsweetened cocoa powder will dissolve easily. If you like cream, leave room for it at the top and add to taste.

The licorice constituent glycyrrhizin is sweet but not harmful (as sugar would be) when you use the whole licorice root.

Licorice root is one of the botanical medicines most frequently used by naturopathic physicians and herbalists. It is the most nourishing plant known for the adrenal glands. The adrenals are a part of the body that are heavily damaged and depleted by accumulated mental and emotional stress over the years. By middle age, many people's adrenal glands are functioning at low levels. Licorice is also nourishing for the liver and has been used to soothe stomach ulcers.

Licorice root is also anti-oxidant and anti-viral, two wonderful properties for fighting viral infections this time of year. Licorice is also demulcent and anti-spasmodic, specifically for coughs, and it can be used in the above form to relieve coughs.

Licorice boosts the immune system, which is quite the opposite of the effect of conventional hot chocolate. The conventional variety contains sugar, which inactivates your white blood cells, your immune system's cold and flu fighters, for a period of five to 24 hours - not quite what we need this time of year especially with the hardest part of the flu season ahead of us.

Just watch out for a slight stimulant effect of the chocolate if you are not used to it. Chocolate contains theobromine, which is chemically similar to theophylline in caffeine. In fact, if you choose to leave out the chocolate altogether and just have the licorice, you will still have a warm and pleasing beverage.

Pharmaceuticals are highly refined homogeneous substances. The molecules contained in drugs are strictly selected for very specific effects on the body and are mostly synthetic. Only about 25% of pharmaceuticals are derived from plants. The rest are mostly chemically derived from tightly controlled chemical reactions.

Whole plants, on the other hand, particularly wild ones, such as are commonly used in herbal medicine have hundreds, sometimes thousands of chemical constituents. Such wild plants as chamomile, plantain, creosote bush and dandelion are medicinal herbs of long-standing use, especially for gastric ulcer and infant colic, cough and interstitial cystitis, antioxidant and joint inflammation, and edema and gallbladder sluggishness respectively. They have a long history of adaptation to various climates and soils, and they have a wide range. As such, they have developed many defenses against their natural enemies. These numerous chemical constituents in turn comprise multiple therapeutic uses, as well as a resonance with our bodies, mostly because our ancestors for countless millennia frequently consumed such foods and left us with the kind of metabolism that actually works very well with these plants. After ingestion of a plant, the various plant constituents come together in a synergy of its parts, in such a way that one part that may be toxic on its own is modulated by the presence of the other plant constituents. Because our bodies have been adapted to these plants as foods, they are much more compatible with good health than synthetic chemicals are.

81-year old Verna Blanchard lives by the premise that "you are only too old to do something, or try to do something, after you have left this planet." She clarifies that although physical limitations exist, simply making the effort to overcome them and being open to a wide range of activities is a much more likely route to health and wellbeing throughout all the stages of one's life.

Here are some of Ms. Blanchard's tips for a fun and vigorous existance at any age [1]:

• Pay careful attention to your diet long term. When in need of a healing remedy, try to find those that do only what they are supposed to. You don't need side effects.
• If something is missing in your ability to enjoy life, try to improve it to the best of your ability. Don't mourn the loss of something that you did at a younger age. Don't focus obsessively on loss of capacity in your life. Rather, celebrate those activities that you can still do and enjoy. Look to replace losses with gains.
• Learn something new and advanced, like computer use, a foreign language, a science or another academic subject. Or music or another art.
• Enjoy any children with whom you come in contact. Learn to reach their level of enthusiasm, and let them know that you like doing silly things with them. You can learn how to make them laugh uproariously. When you read aloud to them, gesticulate with abandon to make sure that the story comes alive for them. The person you were at age 6 is still in your spirit. Let that inner child who is now full of wisdom express him/herself.
• Smile more than you keep a straight face. Be like a sundial; only record the sunny hours.

1. Blanchard, Verna M. "Ageless Spirits." Well Being Journal. Vol.15, No.1 January/February 2006. pp.32-33.

Patricia Simonet, a researcher in the field of animal behavior has presented a rather convincing study as to what dogs are doing while making that excited panting noise while playing with them or when we reach for the leash to take them out for a walk.

Simonet's interpretation of the panting is that they may actually be laughing.

Simonet noticed that playing the sound to other dogs seemed to calm them. She then hit on the idea of playing the sound to dogs in a shelter.

After contacting officials at the Spokane Regional Animal Protection Service and convincing them to give it a try they played the sound on the speaker system throughout the kennel area. The results were remarkable. All of the dogs calmed down within a minute to just listen to the sound.

If the drug companies have not yet convinced you to rush out and ask your doctor for the latest and greatest pharmaceutical. . . you have not yet seen Panexa! What this drug won't do one can hardly imagine. Click on Panexa for information on this spoof drug and those pesky but hilarious side effects.

From the advertisement: "Panexa . . . ask your doctor for a reason to take it."